


Baker-man, Part 2 - Eric

by JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle



Series: Baker-man [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 11:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17579897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle/pseuds/JustLookFrightenedAndScuttle
Summary: After Eric and Jack are together, Eric finds himself skipping back in time to visit a younger Jack, encountering him at some of his high and low moments.





	1. Aug. 3, 2018

**Author's Note:**

> This is Part 2 of a series. You can read Part 1, Jack's POV, concurrently (the encounters run in the opposite order), before this or after this,

Eric wiped his hands on a dish towel and looked at his list. The pie would come out of the oven in a little while, and everything was on track for dinner with the Zimmermanns.

It wasn’t like he’d never cooked for Jack’s parents before -- the maple-apple pie in the oven was a favorite of Bob’s as well as Jack’s -- but making Jack’s official birthday dinner seemed like a big step. He and Jack had been together for three years now, and had been officially living together since Eric graduated.

It had taken a while, but Eric finally felt like he had built his own life in Providence. He had Jack, of course, and he was friends with the other Falconers and their partners. But he also had a job as the assistant manager of a busy bakery, and his YouTube channel was still growing. 

The condo now felt like it was it was his home as much as Jack’s.

So making Jack’s birthday dinner -- instead of going out, like they had in the past, only to have Bob pick up the check for everyone -- seemed like an important statement to make. That he was an adult, and he was in their son’s life to stay, at least as long as Jack would have him.

He was Jack’s partner, not his little friend.

He’d met Jack’s therapist, learned how Jack liked him to help during anxiety attacks, listened when Jack told him about his overdose. He felt ready. He wanted to be ready.

The oven timer dinged. Eric tugged on his oven mitts and bent to take the pie out of the oven.

When he turned to place it on the cooling rack, the familiar granite counter wasn’t there.

Instead, he was in a small bedroom that had the unmistakable stale air and bland decor of some kind of institution.

The man in the narrow bed … he was turning toward Eric … it was Jack. A younger Jack than Eric had ever seen, a paler Jack than Eric had ever seen, but Jack. He looked thin, Eric thought, like he was suffering from a lack of activity. His hair was longer than he usually wore it, and he smelled a little rank.

“Fuck,” Jack said.

“Jack? Where are we?” Eric asked, even though he had a sinking feeling that he knew.

 _“We_ aren’t anywhere,” Jack said. “You’re a hallucination. You must be. I must be more fucked up than I thought if I’ve been hallucinating the same guy since I was five years old.”

This was the Jack Eric first met at Samwell, only more rude and dismissive. But he looked so very alone. Maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe it was just Eric’s imagination playing tricks.

“I dont think I’m a hallucination,” Eric said, gripping the pie plate. “Maybe I’m hallucinating. I’m in the kitchen, and I just took this pie out of the oven. It’s hot. I can feel it through the oven mitts.”

“You’re not in a kitchen. You’re in a rehab facility. Or I’m in a rehab facility. It’s locked -- you couldn’t get to this room without an escort,” Jack said. “So you can’t be real.”

Yep, still dismissive. Eric gathered his strength and decided to pretend that hadn’t hurt.

“You’re in rehab?” he asked. “What year is it?”

“2009,” Jack said. “You know that’s one of the questions they ask when they they think you’re out of your mind?”

Nine years earlier. Exactly nine years? Jack had been in rehab for his 19th birthday. He’d mentioned that when he told Eric the story of his overdose and recovery.

“Is it your birthday?” Eric asked.

“What, you think you’re an answer to a wish?” Jack countered. “They couldn’t even light the fucking candles on the fucking cake. Kind of like my life. Failure to ignite. Sputtered out too soon. And now there’s no fucking point.”

“Oh, Jack,” Eric said, setting down the pie. Jack was lashing out, but only because he was in so much pain, and seeing him this way broke Eric’s heart and brought tears to his eyes. “You might not believe me -- you might not believe in me -- but your life is not over. Things will get so much better for you, and you’ll do so many great things. … I -- so many people will love you, Jack. I promise.”

Jack scoffed. “You have no way of knowing that,” he said. “I mean, it’s nice of you to say. But could you do me a favor and go away?”

Jack turned away. Eric closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he was back in his sunny kitchen in Providence. The pie was on the cooling rack on the counter, but Eric’s eyes and cheeks were wet, and his throat felt thick.

He probably imagined the whole thing, thinking about Jack and all he’d been through.

Once, after they officially started dating but before they exchanged “I love you”s, Jack had said something about an imaginary friend who brought him baked goods. But that couldn’t be real, could it?

Eric shook his head to clear the strange thoughts and opened the drawer to find the birthday candles for Jack’s pie.


	2. Feb. 14, 2023

Eric would go to bed as soon as he finished icing the cookies.

He was not going to wait up for Jack just because it had been Valentine’s Day for an hour, and Jack was due home from roadie.

A roadie that ended in Vegas about two hours ago with a 3-2 Falconers win and both Jack and Kent asked by media people what it was like to play against each other. Still. Fourteen years after they had last been teammates.

It wasn’t like Jack and Kent hadn’t worked to get to a place where they were at least friendly after everything that had passed between them. Or like Jack wasn’t out, or like the public didn’t know he was in a committed relationship with Eric. If anything, the poking was worse for Kent, who never answered any questions about his sexuality, the better, he said, to keep them guessing (and, Eric thought privately, to keep the attention on him).

That was fine with Eric. He had a plan to propose to Jack tomorrow, and he was hoping to keep their engagement and wedding as quiet as possible. He planned to bring the cookies to the Falcs training facility afterwards to share the news -- and bribe Jack’s teammates to keep their mouths shut.

He didn’t regret coming out with Jack in the most public way possible, never that, but now that he had his own line of cookbooks, made real money from YouTube and had guested on several Food Network programs, he found that he valued his privacy in a way he hadn’t back then.

He was resigning himself to going to bed before Jack got home as he put the last cookie on the tray when he suddenly found himself outside in the snow, clad in jeans, sneakers and his old Samwell hoodie that he’d been baking in.

He was still holding the tray of cookies.

He looked around -- yes, there was Jack coming out of the house where it sounded like there was a rager going on. Jack was following -- that had to be an 18-year-old Kent. And Kent looked upset. It might have been because Jack was drunk; his usual coordination had deserted him and his eyes were glassy.

No -- Eric stood stock still, the better not to be noticed while they argued -- it was because Jack had been making out with a girl, or she was making out with him. The idea that Kent might be jealous had clearly not dawned on him.

Eric was still standing there, feeling the cold seep through his sweatshirt, when Jack nearly bowled him over. Jack caught him by the shoulders, rescuing both Eric and the cookies from tumbling to the snow.

“Jack? Are you okay?” Eric asked.

“Baker-man?” Jack asked. “How did you get to Rimouski? And how aren’t you old yet?”

Eric shrugged. Apparently, future-him visited past-Jack when Jack was younger. He didn’t know exactly how much time he had, but it probably wouldn’t be long.

“I turn up in the strangest places,” Eric said. “Are you okay? You look a little drunk. Have a cookie.”

Jack seemed to like the cookies, which Eric took as a good sign.

“These are delicious,” Jack said. “Were you taking them to the party? Do you know Camille somehow?”

“I’m not really close to her,” Eric said. “And I’d be crashing.”

“The cookies might make up for it,” Jack said. “I’ll go in with you.”

That would get Jack out of the cold at least. “Only if you promise to drink some water,” Eric said.

Jack flashed him a smile. Lord, did he know what he looked like when he did that? No wonder Kent was gone on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eric's maple shortbread cookies are something like [this](https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/glazed-maple-shortbread-cookies/).


	3. Sept. 15, 2023

Jack was still at training camp.

Why was Jack still at training camp?

Felicia texted an hour ago that she was in labor and was heading to the hospital with her mother.

That mean Eric had texted Jack 59 minutes ago to say that Felicia was in labor and headed to the hospital with her mother. And that he had called Jack 58 minutes ago to say the same thing on Jack’s voice mail.

Because Jack’s phone was undoubtedly on the shelf in his locker stall while he was on the ice, laughing at Tater, playing pranks on Poots and trying to make the young guys just hoping to make the team feel welcome.

It was a long way from the way Jack had greeted Eric when he turned up at Samwell, but as Jack grew into himself -- grew into being the captain of a Stanley Cup-winning team that was a perennial threat to go all the way, the first out non-straight player, a probable future Hall-of-Famer -- he let go a lot of the tension he’d held all through his college career.

Not that he wasn’t anxious any more (Eric had learned early on to start any unexpected phone calls with, “I’m fine, everything’s fine,” before saying what the call was about), but the deep-seated insecurity that had been with him since childhood had finally been put on a shelf. He knew he would never be Bad Bob, but Bad Bob would never be him, either.

Now Jack was about to embark on fatherhood, with Eric, and Eric could really use his presence here while he waited to get the okay to come to the hospital to meet their daughter.

Assuming Felicia followed through and signed the adoption papers. 

She would. Of course she would. She’d met Jack and Eric six months ago and had never wavered in her decision. But what if at the last minute she didn’t think Eric would be good enough?

Butter tarts. She liked butter tarts, and Eric should have plenty of time to make a couple of batches to take with when they went to the hospital.

Eric was just arranging the tarts on a tray when he found himself in a cinderblock-lined hallway in what had to be an ice rink, judging by the smell and the temperature.

He peered through an open door and saw a coach’s office. Jack -- maybe a pre-teen? -- faced an adult man across the table. Jack didn’t look happy, and the man looked bemused.

Eric eavesdropped unabashedly. If God or the universe or whatever wanted to show him glimpses of Jack’s past, he would learn whatever he could.

The coach was asking Jack to evaluate his own performance on a team that was at least one age-level above Jack’s, that much was apparent. Jack seemed to think he should be dominating players a year or two older; Eric wasn’t sure the coach agreed, although it was plain that he had ideas for what Jack could do better. Which was mostly growing.

Eric had time to move a few feet down the hall before Jack emerged from the door and saw him. He recognized him, so Eric must have visited an even younger Jack at some point. Jack asked about the butter tarts being for sale -- as though he had money in his Under Armor pockets -- but Eric said he could just have some.

Jack took three, even though he said he shouldn’t eat them.

“I need to eat more protein,” Jack said.

It wasn’t his fault he didn’t understand why Eric thought it was funny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find a butter tart recipe [here](https://www.tastingtable.com/cook/recipes/canadian-butter-tart-recipe).


	4. Dec. 21, 2027

Only Canadians would start by making soup when they wanted a pie, Eric thought, stirring together the browned pork and the spices. He added garlic, the onion and the water he’d saved after cooking the potatoes, bringing it all to a boil. That could simmer while he did the crust; it would take better than a half-hour for the liquid to evaporate.

He’d once experimented with using less liquid so it wouldn’t take so long to boil off, but the filling hadn’t been quite right. Not having enough potato starch from the water made the filling more crumbly. Jack still ate it, but Eric was glad that he’d tried adjusting the recipe well in advance of the holidays and could go back to the traditional way when he cooked for Jack’s family.

This was, what, the twelfth year he was in charge the tourtieres for the Zimmermann Christmas gathering? Which was happening December 21 this year because the Zimmermanns were free that day and he could take the kids to Georgia to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with their Bittle grandparents. It would Robbie’s first trip south. Jack would join them there after his game on the 23rd and stay until the morning of the 26th.

It was good, Eric thought. Mama and Coach were happy he was coming, he was sure of that. He was also pretty sure they volunteered to host the family gathering Christmas Day so that none of their relatives could say anything about not wanting the gay poster-couple in their homes. But it would be a short trip, and Zuzu’s arrival had swept away any lingering feeling that his parents might not entirely approve of him. When Robbie came along, well. Eric was pretty sure Coach would have a football under the tree for him, even though he was barely walking. I didn’t matter; Zuzu would like it.

Eric rolled out the dough for the crust, then cut it into circles to make hand-pies. He remembered how afraid he was the first time he had made the tourtieres this way; he was monkeying around with a family tradition. But they had been expecting Shitty and Lardo and some of the Falconers and even one or two of Jack’s hockey uncles for that gathering, and it seemed easier to give everyone something they could eat with their hands while they mingled.

He needn’t have worried. Bob thought it was genius to make the savory meat pies in a handy, take-along size, and Alicia had asked if there was anything special she should tell the caterer about how to convert the recipe the next time she hosted a party. Now Eric made them as hand-pies even when the family was sitting down to a holiday dinner.

Which would happen in about two hours. Eric put the pies in the oven and checked his list for the rest of the meal. Robbie would be up soon, and Eric wanted to have him dressed before Alicia and Bob arrived.

Eric had the roast in as soon as the tourtieres came out, had Robbie in the holiday outfit that Alicia had sent, had Zuzu in her favorite leggings and tunic, and was feeling very accomplished as he put the tourtieres in a plastic box to wait until he could arrange them properly.

Then he wasn’t in the kitchen at all. He was in a skating rink -- not a big arena, but a community rink, the kind with three rows of bleachers and Gatorade in vending machines in the lobby. There was a kids’ game going on -- mites, maybe? 

He went to the glass to watch, and saw a child-size Jack, skating the puck in with the same determination he had when Eric first met him at Samwell. He skated right in front of the net and lifted the puck over the goalie’s glove in a way that just wasn’t fair for someone his age.

Then he gave his usual restrained celly before skating back to take the faceoff.

Eric watched the rest of the game, then set the pies down on a table in the lobby to wait. Jack would have to come this way to go home.

There he was, with Bob, a smile still splitting his features.

“Can I have one, Papa?” Jack asked, looking at the pies. “I’m hungry.”

Eric drank in the sight of him, proud and happy as he walked with his father.

He would have given them the whole box -- there was no reason for Bob to pay.

He made sure to congratulate Jack, and to remind him that it didn’t matter what anyone said -- he should be proud of himself.

As Jack and Bob walked away, Eric couldn’t help watching and wishing Jack’s life was always that happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find a recipe for mini-tourtieres [here](https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/christmas-tourtiere-recipe).


	5. Sept. 1, 2028

Eric pulled his chilled pan of Nanaimo bars from the refrigerator and looked at them with a critical eye.

It looked like everything had set properly. He’d run a couple of experiments to make sure the bottom layer would work without nuts, and that the vanilla custard that made up the middle would be firm after being chilled.

Now to cut them, using a warm knife to keep the slices smooth and the edges even.

Of course ZuZu’s classmates in her private kindergarten wouldn’t care what they looked like, but Eric was professional. He wasn’t going to serve substandard treats to his daughter’s class -- on the day she was presenting about Canada, Jack’s home country, no less. ZuZu was supposed to be presenting just a half-hour from now.

Robbie was asleep in his crib, and the sitter was working on her college classwork in the den, baby monitor on the table beside her. Time to go.

Eric drove to the primary school, got the cooler bag with the container, and started for the door.

Then he found himself at a different school entirely.

There was more open space, and more of the trees were evergreens. The building wasn’t familiar, and the playground equipment was a style that looked old even when Eric was a boy. A glimpse at the cars in the lot confirmed his suspicions.

Even if they hadn’t, the small boy in front of him could have been nobody but Jack. 

Judging from the pictures Eric had seen, this Jack was about five, still a little chunky, but with the biggest blue eyes Eric had ever seen on a child.

The look on his face was unhappy, and determined, and something else, too. Curious, maybe, about this strange man who appeared in front of him. Probably not as frightened as he should be.

That was good, Eric thought. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he got arrested for hanging around a schoolyard during one of these time jumps.

“It’s okay, sweetpea,” he said, hoping to reassure Jack. “I’m not gonna come any closer. Don’t worry yourself.”

Jack continued to observe him, all the focus that he would bring to pursuits from history to hockey already there.

“You’re Jack,” Eric said.

Jack kept looking at him. Eric was almost certain this was the first time Jack had seen him. At any rate, he hadn’t remembered anything before primary school when Eric had started asking for details.

“You don’t have to talk to me,” Eric said. Then he remembered what he had: Jack’s favorite Nanaimo bars. He opened the cooler bag. “I bet you’d like one of these, though.”

He opened the case to show Jack the container of Nanaimo bars inside,

Jack started to reach for one, then stepped back. Of course. Offering sweets to children … that could get him arrested.

“You’re right, of course,” Eric said. “Silly of me to offer. If I give them to your teacher and she says the class can each have one, you’d like that, I bet. They’ll melt before I get back home anyway, and that would be a shame after I went to the trouble of making them. You’re what -- about five? I bet a class of kindergartners would love these.”

Jack looked more relaxed, but still not happy.

“What are you doing way over here by yourself?” Eric asked.

“Stupid Timothy said I was too big to play,” Jack said. “Just because I fell on him.”

Well. If Zuzu had called a playmate “stupid Timothy,” Eric would probably have something to say, but Eric knew Jack would grow into a kind, considerate man, who didn’t deserve the kind of treatment Timothy was inflicting on his five-year-old self. Timothy probably was a rather stupid boy.

“Well, that is kind of a stupid thing to say,” he agreed. “Is that him over there?”

Eric pointed to the little terror who was trying to take a ball by force from another child.

“Doesn’t seem very nice, does he?” Eric said. “Well, don’t you worry about him. You’ll grow into a strong man, not too big at all.”

He hoped that reassurance was enough as he walked away, the long way round the school yard to the front doors. He stopped and wrote a brief note on the back of a bakery business card from his wallet: _For Jack Zimmermann’s class, from his family._

Then he went to the office to drop the bars off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Recipe](https://tastykitchen.com/recipes/desserts/nut-free-nanaimo-bars/) for the base of Eric’s bars.
> 
> Recipe for the filling.

**Author's Note:**

> Eric's maple-apple pie is something like [this](https://eviltwin.kitchen/brown-sugar-maple-apple-pie/).
> 
> Come say hi on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/justlookfrightened) or on [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/justlookfrightened)!


End file.
